thwarted

You ever have one of those days?

Where it seems like everything is not going right?

Today was one of those for me.

We were having some friends over for dinner. I was planning to make spaghetti and meatballs, but needed to go to one store for the meat and another for the pasta. After Tori got home from school, we got on the e-bike to go to both stores. We hadn't even left the neighborhood and my e-bike died. I pushed it back home. I think that a wire rattled loose. After getting back home, I decided I would take my bike. But since buying my e-bike, my bike has sat lonely and was therefore so dirty. Cleaned it off, T and I got on only to discover that both tires were flat. I got the air pump, filled the front tire. But I then discovered the back tire had a hole.

Fine, guess that means we are walking to the store.

The problem is that the two stores are about a block and a half away from each other and our house sits in the middle. But in China where everything is bigger, that block is HUGE. I knew that T was not going to make it walking to the one store, walk to the second, and then walk home without major grumping. I had to decide which was more important: the meat or the pasta?

I decided to walk to Tesco (the store that usually has a selection of pasta) because sometimes they also have ground beef. Not always, but I decided to take a chance. Get to Tesco to discover that they do indeed have ground beef (and we bought the only 2 packages in the whole store), but no spaghetti. In fact the only kind of pasta that they did have was lasagna noodles. Okay fine, no spaghetti we will have lasagna instead. I think this is the first time I have cooked a lasagna in China! In fact, when we sat down to eat Tori asked what it was. When I answered her, she then replied with, "What is lasagna?" And then as she was eating, she exclaimed:

"This tastes really familiar, but it looks really strange."

Yes, that would be my daughter's view on lasagna. The same girl who adores tofu.

stories of life

You know how there are stories within a family that almost become like legend? I have a few that I tell of our kids first couple of years that they each love to hear me tell and re-tell.

Tori being the exuberant force to be reckoned with that she is, has quite a few stories. But perhaps my favourite is the jumping story.

As soon as she started walking, walking was not enough for her. She needed to climb. And explore. EVERYTHING. But being T, it didn't stop there. She also loved to jump. So she would climb someplace (often way too high for my comfort) and call out: jumping, jumping, jumping.

Then after 3 jumpings, she would jump. Didn't matter if the place was way over head. Or dangerous. Once she got to that 3rd jumping, she would launch herself.

I love that you can actually see her saying, "jumping, . . ."

I got to the point where I would listen carefully for her early warning jumping alarm and would rush over to have her hold my hand as she jumped.

Didn't stop her from jumping, just kept her safe as she leaped. But isn't that what we as moms are called to do? Not to limit our children. But be there to catch them as they fall.

And I have a feeling that our #3, our force to be reckoned with, is going to leap far. With her determination, her independence, her clever mind, we just see great things in store for her. Oh, the places she might go.

Counting down to New Year

With the weather turning colder and rainy, we are starting our countdown for Chinese New Year. CNY is really early this year. The official day is 23 January. But we leave for vacation in just over a week, 19 January.

For Andy, CNY does not start until the company New year party is over. Each year, he gives a speech to start the dinner off. The past couple of years, he has given the speech entirely in CHINESE. Needless to say, he prepares for this for a long time and it stresses him until it is over. The company dinner was this past Saturday and he did an AMAZING job. I was so proud of him as he looked relaxed and gave a great speech. [just to brag a little more on him, he talked for more than 5 minutes!]

You know it is successful when you tell a joke in another language and people actually find it funny and laugh. Because I have found that humor can be so unique to culture. He told several jokes in Chinese and each was greeted with laugher. Success! Countless times, I have said something that I thought was funny and no one laughs. Then other times, I say something, everyone laughs and I have no idea why.

So now we are looking forward to our annual trip. Each year during CNY we visit someplace in southeast Asia. This year we are going to Bali, Indonesia. Beach, jungle, volcano . . . bring it on!

**Just as an aside: Honestly, we have a great camera that takes wonderful pictures. But do you ever find that it is just hard to always have it on hand? I must confess that I am amazed by the blogs where every picture is phenomenal. Because while I love to take pictures, sometimes in everyday life it is just not practical to drag the camera on the bus (or e-bike). So I make do with my phone. And as a result, share crummy-quality pictures with you.

How is it that every picture I took of Andy giving his speech he had his eyes closed? One would think he was concentrating really hard or something!

 Part of the New Year's party is games. In the past they have hired performers. One year there was a magician who was entertaining. There were dancers one year that were slightly alarming. I wanted to cover my boy's eyes. But overall, the employees prefer games that get people on stage having fun together. Because the company has only 2 foreigners (Andy and an intern), all of the games were in Chinese. Some I didn't quite get everything that was said (understanding Chinese through a microphone is hard much like over the telephone). But one was a game that a team of 2 people had to make various letters of the alphabet. They started out with easy ones like A and D. But the grand finale?

T.

Here they are thinking about how they are going to pull it off.

The end result?

And yes, the picture quality is terrible. But I think I was laughing too hard to keep my phone still!

Becca so wanted to be part of this game. A bit later, she got her chance as they asked if any kids would like to participate.

Can you tell the letter? I really enjoy the mom (who is the HR manager) giving directions in the front.

As we are down to just days before vacation, I am wondering if we are going to get our medical check done for the adoption before going. [sigh] We are still waiting to hear about to-notarize/not-to-notarize.

I continue to furiously gather papers and put things in motion in the US. Thankfully, all of the things I need to do right now are just on the US-side. Because nothing is going to be happening in China for the next couple of weeks. This country shuts down for a couple weeks around CNY. Just as an example, Tori's Chinese school gets 3 weeks off!

While I know that delays are part of the process, I so want things to keep moving forward. One thing I know this journey is going to teach me every step of the way is patience.

There are so many things we love about living in China. Our diverse neighborhood. Traveling. The adventure of everyday life.

But one of our absolute faves?

天府之乐! (Tian fu zhi le) One of our favorite restaurants that is just around the corner from our house. I had been busy working on various things today and just did not have time to get to the store. So I texted Andy that is was going to be a Tian Fu night.

When I ordered each of the kids called out their must-haves. Jiaozi (dumplings), eggplant, broccoli, spicy noodles, green beans, and rabbit legs.

But the only problem is that I am used to ordering for a crowd. And there was just 5 of us tonight. Hmm, I think that I ordered too much. When this picture was taken we had already eaten the rabbit, cucumbers, and noodles. Definitely, too much! Yummy lunch for tomorrow though.

But the best part of it all? This whole meal only cost 110 RMB (about $17.50).

adoption update

With the holidays over and Chinese New Year looming around the corner, my list of things to get done seems huge. At times things progress smoothly and at others we seem at a standstill. We have requested countless papers. I have discovered that my FedEx number does NOT work when shipping things from China. I have figured out where to notarize and ways to get money orders (ask a friend in the US to do it for you). 

But we are still firmly in the paperchasing mode. We hope to have our home study after the new year (Chinese New Year, the only one that really counts here). So I am in a race to gather everything that is needed before we leave for our holiday in 16 days.

Though mostly it is slow, I am encouraged to see things checked off my great list. Well, actually my bulletin board.

If only I could move a few more things to the FINISHED column.

Will keep you posted as things progress. Right now it is just frustrating and a little hard to be doing this from China. I know that we will reach a part of the progress that will be easier (like visas- already DONE or travel, that will be no problem). But for now, I am off to figure out just how to get the forms for our physicals notarized. Because for some reason the doctor is unwilling to accompany us to the consulate to have them notarized {and yes, there was just a little sarcasm there}.

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Because this humored me in the grocery store this past week, I feel the need to share.

Just what makes the brown sugar maternal? FYI - the literal translation is pregnant brown sugar. Which is still not making any sense to me. I opted not to buy this kind. Was leery of how brown sugar could get pregnant or be maternal.

Christmas photo recap & looking to the new year

We had such a wonderful Christmas. So wonderful that I didn't have time to blog. Andy's brother, Dave, his wife Amree and our adorable nephew joined us for Christmas. This is our 4th Christmas in China and it has gotten easier being away from family. Meaning that I don't spend half the day in tears. But saying that it gets easier does not mean easy. I love my family and love spending time with them. But Andy gets no time off for Christmas. And let's not talk about how expensive it is for all 5 of us to fly back to the US. So having family come to us is such a blessing. Dave and Amree live in Japan and also were not planning to make the long trip back to the US. You can tell from the pictures, we had a great time.

The 6 days they were here went by way too fast!

John is enjoying a bowl of our ayi's noodles.

The first bowl she cut them up.

But then we realized that he enjoyed eating them long. Can he be any cuter?

Christmas morning. Or maybe afternoon. Hard to tell since we have the tradition of staying in our pajamas all day long.

[Technically, this was Christmas eve day. We celebrated a day earlier and invited people to join us on Christmas day after church].

While I love having people in our house, Christmas (or when we celebrate it) is a time for just our family. We stayed in pj's, snacked the day away, and opened presents.

Our kids were the first grandchildren on each side so cousins are a relatively new thing for them. But one that they greatly enjoy.

This pretty much sums up Christmas morning. Our kids opening presents with John in the background reeking a little havoc. Here is he is taking the batteries out of the remote.

But he is just so cute.

And we loved every minute with him.

 Josh is a reader. A voracious reader. And books are so hard to find here. Well, at least ones in English.

So after much debate, we got him a Kindle touch. At first he didn't know what it was. This is when realization dawned.

(pardon my scarf that does not quite match. Becca made this for me for Christmas in my fave of all colours. . . BROWN)

This has become a common sight.

On Christmas Day (the actual one) we invited friends and I made soup. Andy referred to me as the soup diva.

Soup, games and friends. A great combo.

Holiday B. She is growing up and looking more mature with each picture we take.

Josh was thrilled to have a BOY around the house. In his words: there are too many girls in this house.

And I sit here writing on New Year's eve. The kids are playing (mostly) happily upstairs. And in a few hours, yet again friends will arrive to usher the new year in with us.

Does the new year make you contemplative? 

I was on the elliptical. Because I generally do a lot of thinking when I exercise -- maybe because it is the one time of my day when I am alone? And I was thinking of all that change that is looming on the horizon for our family. We will go from a family of 5 to 6. Our kids will have some big changes in their school situations. Friends are moving away. New friends will arrive. But in the midst of this some things will be constant. We will still be here in China. Living each day to honour and glorify God. And life will be good.

I wish each of you a joyous new year! Though we get to start it first. ;-)

sunday snapshot: {the leg of lamb}

As I mentioned in the last post, we received lamb as a gift when some people from Andy's office came to our house to eat a holiday meal.

Ok, technically we received 2 huge lamb legs.

Before going any further, I feel I should give a disclaimer. If you are squeamish and don't like the sight of raw meat, this may not be the post for you. Consider yourself warned.

Mr. Dai (pronounced dye) gave us the lamb. Fittingly enough he is the purchasing manager. I think Andy looks a little stunned. Or maybe perplexed. I know I was shocked and not just a little daunted to cook this.

He gave them to us in just a regular bag. I kept thinking, how in the world am I going to cook this?

Before storing them in the fridge, Andy wanted a picture of me with the lamb. I think probably because I was making a big deal about not wanting to touch them. Don't I just look thrilled? And I told you, the legs are huge!

Pondering how to get it to fit. My face says it all.

But I was determined. And victorious in the end. I was not to be bested by the lamb.

Huge. They are huge. Yet again thinking, how am I going to cook this?

But here is confession time. I didn't cut it up. While I routinely cut up whole chickens (head, feet, and all), this was a bit beyond me. So I called in the reinforcements (my ayi, yet another reason I am thankful for Xiao Lu).

 Though she had never cut lamp before either so it was a bit of the blind leading the blind.

This a serious amount of meat. We divided the meat -- by that of course I am meaning Xiao Lu cut it up, and I put it in the bags. She cut the leg down to about what you might buy in the States so that it would actually fit in the oven. I had pushed and prodded to get it in the fridge, somehow I didn't think that was going to work so well in the oven.

One of the legs marinating. Still a little nervous because I had never cooked lamb like this before. But being me, even though it was a new recipe and I was nervous, I invited some friends over to eat it with us.

And the verdict?

It was SO good. I have the other in the freezer for Christmas eve.

Hope that you have a wonderful Christmas week!

Click for more Sunday snapshots